Typically, a file server may contain a number of items, for example, files, directories, and/or other items associated with a file system and/or metadata associated with the items. When backing up the file server, a backup application may create a backup image that includes a backup of the items (i.e., backup of actual file data, etc.) onto a tape, disc, cloud, etc. The backup application may store the metadata associated with the items in a separate catalog file and/or in a database. This catalog file may then be utilized to perform search operations for particular files and directories without requiring a scan of the entire backup image. Based on the approach followed to store the metadata, the search capabilities may depend on the underlying database management system (for example, in the case where the metadata is stored in a database), or homegrown indexing capabilities of the underlying catalog file (for example, in the case where the metadata is stored in a catalog file). Both of these approaches may have limitations on file name length and path name length that they can support.
As the file server is periodically backed up, over time, a large amount of metadata records may be created and stored. Search performance of the database may degrade over time because a search through these records may need to be performed to, for example, restore a particular file.
Also, for backup systems in an enterprise that are configured to backup data associated with a number of machines associated with a number of users, it is important to ensure that a backup application allows a particular user to restore only files that he/she has access too. Typically, a backup application has to build its own security measures to restrict users from viewing files that are not owned by them.
Some backup applications may store the entire backup image in a virtual file system image format, for example, VMDK (virtual machine disk format) format supported by VMWare™, VHD (virtual hard disk) format supported by Microsoft®, and/or other virtual image formats, so that the whole image may be mounted for searching, browsing, and recovery purposes. The drawback of this approach, however, is that it requires a large amount of storage space because complete backup image copies must be stored at all recovery points in order to provide catalogs for these recovery points.
These and other drawbacks exist.